Greetings Monks!

I have an API that returns prices as floats in textual form and a database that contains prices in integer cents.
None of this can be changed.

I need to compare whether the prices retrieved through the API conform to the ones stored in the database.
Prototype:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w   
#

use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

my $num1 = 1990;
my $num2 = '19.90'; 
#my $num1 = 465;
#my $num2 = '4.65';   

$num2 += 0;
$num2 *= 100;

print Dumper($num1);
print Dumper($num2);

if ($num1 == $num2) {
        print "-> equal\n";
} else {
        print "-> different\n";
}

$num2 = int($num2);  

print Dumper($num1); 
print Dumper($num2); 

if ($num1 == $num2) {
        print "-> equal\n";
} else {
        print "-> different\n";
}
[download]

This fails due to the way floats are stored in memory:

$VAR1 = 1990;
$VAR1 = '1990';
-> different
$VAR1 = 1990;
$VAR1 = 1989;
-> different
[download]

For other values this sort of works but still requires the use of int():

$VAR1 = 465;
$VAR1 = '465';
-> different
$VAR1 = 465;
$VAR1 = 465;
-> equal
[download]

What is the correct way of doing this within the given constraints?

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